Finally! 'Hamilton' tickets on sale next week

As the biggest generation-crossing Broadway phenomenon since "Rent" 25 years ago, "Hamilton," a hip-hop-influenced retelling of the story of America's Founding Fathers, has created unprecedented ticket demand. In response, the show's management and theaters where it plays have adopted a variety of strategies to try to limit tickets scooped up by resellers and other secondary-market vendors, which is a nice way of saying scalpers. less

As the biggest generation-crossing Broadway phenomenon since "Rent" 25 years ago, "Hamilton," a hip-hop-influenced retelling of the story of America's Founding Fathers, has created unprecedented ticket demand. ... more

Photo: SARA KRULWICH

Photo: SARA KRULWICH

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As the biggest generation-crossing Broadway phenomenon since "Rent" 25 years ago, "Hamilton," a hip-hop-influenced retelling of the story of America's Founding Fathers, has created unprecedented ticket demand. In response, the show's management and theaters where it plays have adopted a variety of strategies to try to limit tickets scooped up by resellers and other secondary-market vendors, which is a nice way of saying scalpers. less

As the biggest generation-crossing Broadway phenomenon since "Rent" 25 years ago, "Hamilton," a hip-hop-influenced retelling of the story of America's Founding Fathers, has created unprecedented ticket demand. ... more

Photo: SARA KRULWICH

Finally! 'Hamilton' tickets on sale next week

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SCHENECTADY — Almost two and a half years after Proctors announced that it would be hosting the national tour of the Broadway sensation "Hamilton," tickets are about to go on sale.

No, not yet. You can keep reading.

Tickets are not on sale. No one has a legitimate ticket.

The website that is right now promising Row A seats for $1,847 apiece? It does not have the tickets.

As Proctors CEO Philip Morris put it in an emphatic email, "Not ONE ticket has been issued for 'Hamilton.' Not one!"

Genuine "Hamilton" tickets will be sold starting at 10 a.m. next Monday — June 24. The show runs for 16 performances, from Aug. 13 to 25. And the authentic, from-Proctors prices will start at $95 to $165, with a small number of $265 premium seats at each performance.

All tickets that are immediately available are expected to be gone by the end of the day next Monday, said Morris, who in February 2017 announced that "Hamilton" would be performed during the theater's 2018-19 season.

As the biggest generation-crossing Broadway phenomenon since "Rent" 25 years ago, "Hamilton," a hip-hop-influenced retelling of the story of America's Founding Fathers, has created unprecedented ticket demand. In response, the show's management and theaters where it plays have adopted a variety of strategies to try to limit tickets scooped up by resellers and other secondary-market vendors, which is a nice way of saying scalpers.

Unlike Ticketmaster, which has its own, in-house resale market, Proctors does not work with resellers. It actively tries to stymie their access to tickets through strategies including an awareness campaign that started last week called "Don't Be a Sucker." Its message: Unless you go to the box office, call Proctors at 518-346-6204 or visit proctors.org, you have a good chance of getting ripped off. And you will surely pay more than the face value of the ticket.

"We want people to avoid these sites if at all possible," said Jim Murphy, director of marketing and corporate relations for Proctors.

In round numbers, Proctors has 42,000 seats available for the two-week "Hamilton" run. Of those, about 15,000 are reserved for subscribers — but, again, those tickets have not been given out, in electronic or physical form. They're simply set aside in the computer system.

Of the remaining 27,000 tickets, a certain number is claimed for use by the producers and Proctors, others for the "Hamilton" ticket lottery, which makes blocks of 40 tickets available at $10 apiece for each performance in the days before the show. The producers also typically release some tickets that have been held back, making them for sale, at face value, during the run.

All others will be available through the Proctors box office starting Monday. Morris projected half will be sold online, the remainder split between phone and in-person sales. There will be 45 people answering phones and 20 sales terminals in the box office/Robb Alley lobby area, Morris said. The phone queue will allow 200 callers at a time to be on hold, Morris said; once it's full, callers will hear a busy signal.

The lobby will open at 8 a.m. Monday for "Hamilton" sales. To discourage people from camping out, those entering before 10 a.m. will be given a randomized number and shown into the main theater, where there will be food, drink and entertainment. Numbers will then be called in ascending order, in groups of 20 to 30, and taken to sales terminals. Receiving a randomized number does not guarantee being able to purchase a ticket; theoretically, according to Proctors, a person who is first in line at 8 a.m. could get a high random number, and by the time it is called, tickets may be gone.

To try to prevent a crash of the box office's computers, server capacity has been quardrupled in preparation for "Hamilton," Morris said. There will also be an electronic queueing system that will limit the number of simultaneous transactions to the amount that the system can handle, Murphy said. Resale-thwarting tactics will include requiring an account — with name, address and credit card — be established for each online sale, and each account will be limited to four tickets, Murphy said. (He advised setting up an account prior to Monday to speed up the process.) The four-ticket limit also applies to in-person and phone transactions.

Like airlines and hotels, Proctors uses dynamic pricing, which means that prices go up as an event nears and demand increases. The initial top ticket price, $265, will stay the same during much of Monday's sales, Morris said, but "Hamilton" producers, not Proctors, will decide when and by how much to increase prices as the Schenectady opening approaches.

"They're very sensitive to making the show affordable," Morris said, pointing to the commitment to the "Hamilton" lottery in every city in which the show plays. But, unlike the nonprofit Proctors, "Hamilton" is a for-profit enterprise dedicated in part to making money for its investors.

For the producers, Morris said, "It's a game of balancing competing ambitions."